The McCormick Toy Test is widely in clinics and by Teachers of the Deaf as an effective way of identifying hearing difficulties in children and young people aged from two years. Toys that a child or young person are likely to recognise are used with 14 paired words. These are:
- tree – key
- shoe – spoon
- cow – house
- plane – plate
- horse – fork
- duck – cup
- man – lamb
Each pair of words contains some similar speech sounds. This means that if the child or young person is not able to hear the full range of speech sounds they may choose the other toy in the matched pair by mistake because they missed the beginning or end sound of the word. The test results provide additional information to other hearing tests.
Administering the test
All the toys are placed on the table. Before the test starts, the tester asks the child to identify each toy. If a child does not recognise any toy this is taken away (along with its pair) and not included in the test. The test can be carried out with and without lip-reading, and the words are spoken at conversational level. The child or young person is asked to point to each toy when asked “show me the …”, “where is the…”.
The Teacher of the Deaf removes any visual clues by covering their nose and mouth with a small screen and repeats the test, lowering their voice until the child or young person can correctly identify four out of five toys. The level of the tester’s voice when the child or young person got four out of five correct answers is then measured and recorded. The level is then used to plan provision and effective outcomes.